By John Harwood
Photos: The White House\YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons
Donald Trump, who values image over reality, complains that America’s flag will fly at half-staff over his inauguration. He thinks it makes him look bad.
Yet Trump has deeper cause for discomfort. The reason for the somber image Americans will see on January 20 creates an extremely unflattering contrast.
Flags over government buildings are flying at half-staff to honor former President Jimmy Carter, who passed away on Dec. 29 at the age of 100. His official state funeral service at Washington National Cathedral takes place today at 10 a.m. ET (15:00 GMT).
As much as anyone could, the peanut farmer-turned-politician represents the antithesis of Trump.
‘A Renaissance Man’ vs. Grifter
Jimmy Carter does not rank among our greatest presidents. A recent survey of historians pegged him 22nd – behind modern counterparts Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and George H.W. Bush, but ahead of Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush.
The historians ranked Trump dead last at 45. But that doesn’t capture the divergence of character between the two men.
Carter was pious and prickly, clumsy with allies, sometimes willing to take shortcuts in service of ambition. He never possessed Trump’s gift for showmanship and lost his re-election bid in a landslide.
Yet, for all his shortcomings, Carter was also honest, incorruptible, and omnivorous about amassing information. Trump? He lies relentlessly, cons followers for money and votes, and never bothers to educate himself about basic governing responsibilities.
Biographer Jonathan Alter calls Carter “the first American president since Thomas Jefferson who could fairly claim to be a Renaissance man, or at least a world-class autodidact.” It’s exhausting just to read Alter’s list of skills the late president amassed over a lifetime beginning and ending in rural Georgia: …
